THE STORY of JAGUAR E-TYPE GATTINO ROSSO (Part I)

HOW IT ALL STARTED
You're all familiar with how this obsession begins. I was captivated by the few E-types I saw many years ago, and a cool guy my sister's age had a Series III coupe. I didn't get the bug bad, though, until I had my first (and only!) ride in a Series I roadster, on the night of our high school senior prom. Hard to believe my classmate's dad let him drive it, but... wow. I was hooked.
Several years later, in college, I was scanning for a nice driver's car. Some of the Healeys were sketchy, the Minis were hiding some structural problems, the Jags of any quality were too much money, and although I found a 250 GTE Ferrari for $13K, I suspected I'd end up spending that much just to keep it alive. (Yeah, some years later people spent up to $80K to use them as donors for GTO replicas. Oh well. D-types were $10K way back when too.)
My roommate had a nice MG-TC he had restored and I did my best to not grind the gears when he let me drive it. Still... not quite what I was dreaming of. Then he let on, some months later, that he had another car... Stored down in L.A. at his parents' house, awaiting a valve job, was a 1966 Series 1 E-type coupe. Whoa. A 4.2, known to be more of a driver's car than the 3.8 (mainly due to the old Moss box and the seats, plus brakes and cooling, or lack of).
He was still not sure about letting it go, but being in business school and with his fiance pushing him to simplify, plus repeated entreaties by Yours Truly, he finally OK'd the sale. I just had to go down to check it out, and if it looked OK, write him a check and take it home. No problem. (Stay tuned. for Part II)
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